About Transformation Garden

Transformation Garden is a worldwide Christian ministry dedicated to encouraging and empowering women in their daily walk with Jesus. The devotional thoughts presented in Transformation Garden have their foundation in the Bible – the inspired word of God.

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Transformation Garden - April 23, 2015

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, murdering the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a mother fowl gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused!...For I declare to you, you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed magnified in worship, adored, and exalted is He Who comes in the name of the Lord.”

Matthew 23: 37, 39
Amplified Bible

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; we bless you from the house of the Lord, you who come into His sanctuary under His guardianship.”

Psalm 118: 26
Amplified Bible

Terrible Love

“How wonderful and how terrible is Your love, O God.

The love which weeps with longing for Your

children while they plan to crucify You.

The love which longs to enfold them as a hen

enfolds her chicks,

but which is spread-eagled on a cross to die in agony.

The love which allows us to go the way

we have wrongly chosen,

but which follows us into our God forsaken-ness

How wonderful and how terrible is Your love, O God;

before that mystery we bow.

May we know that enfolding love now,

as we turn from our folly

to the love which created us,

the love which comes to save us,

the love which will never let us go.

May You enfolding love reach each one of us.

For the assurance of Your love give to us afresh,

thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

AMEN!”

Ian Cowie

Today’s Study Text:

1. “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to (their) own way; and the Lord has made to light upon Him the guilt and iniquity of us all.”

Isaiah 53: 6

Amplified Bible

2. “He personally bore our sins in His own body on the tree as on an altar and offered Himself on it, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. For you were going astray like so many sheep, but now you have come back to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.”

1 Peter 2: 24, 25

Amplified Bible

EXPLORATION:

“Lest I Forget” Part 16

“Thou Hast Borne All for Me”

“”Christ, having sacrificed Himself once, is to eternity a certain and valid sacrifice for the sins of all faithful.”

Zwingli

What does it mean to me to know that Jesus has “borne all for me”?

How can I show my Jesus how much I love Him?

“When Jesus died, heaven was opened for all who would come.”

Colin Smith

INSPIRATION:

“When Christ cried out on Calvary, ‘It is finished,’ He meant what He said! All that (you and I) have to do now is just accept the work of Jesus Christ.”

D. L. Moody

The Way to God

1884

“Thou Has Borne All for Me”

For several weeks now, we have used the hymn, “Lead Me to Calvary” as our template for the studies during this Easter season.

While every line of this heart-touching song inspires us to say, “Thank You, Jesus,” the final line of the hymn is to me the very best: “Thou hast borne all for me.” The reason I am moved by these words is that I know enough about “Dorothy” to know that I can’t do one thing to pick myself up from the pit of sin and save myself. I love the way Lewis Chafer gets to the heart of salvation, “Anyone can devise a plan by which good people go to heaven. Only God can devise a plan whereby sinners, which are His enemies, can go to heaven.” It doesn’t make me feel too good to think that I could be God’s enemy, but I must admit that indeed, in my own life, there were times that I felt rather self-sufficient. I didn’t think I needed anybody. But when you get to the top of Calvary and look at the Cross, there’s something that grabs you with the truth: “I need a Savior!” As the great evangelist D.L. Moody so graphically portrays, we realize we need a Savior, a rescuer, when we come to “the mangled body of the Son of God.” Pastor Moody continues with these heartfelt words” The loss of a soul! Christ knew what it meant. That is what brought Him from the bosom of the Father; that is what brought Him from the throne; that is what brought Him to Calvary.”

As we study the Bible and particularly the lives of God’s children down through time, the Apostle Paul stands out as a person who grasped the need for a Savior in a most personal way. Saul was going the wrong direction. He’d be the first to admit he was a vicious enemy of Jesus in his young life. But when his Savior stopped him on the road to Damascus, where his intent was to persecute more followers of Christ, this intellectual young man ran into the “mangled body” of Jesus Christ and he couldn’t just hop over that sacred body. In fact, he couldn’t take his eyes off that holy figure. Not just on the day he came face to face with the Man from Galilee. But for the rest of his entire life. And when Jesus got a hold of Saul of Tarsus not only did Jesus change Saul’s name, He changed his heart. The great Bible student, S. D. Gordon, in his book The Bent-Knee Time, says there were three “ALL’S” that became the working creed of the Apostle Paul: “He aimed passionately to let ‘all’ of Christ into his own life. He aimed strictly and keenly to keep out of his life ‘all’ that would grieve the heart of Christ. And then he aimed graciously, thoughtfully, even sacrificially, to be ‘all’ things necessary in winning men and women to Christ. The ‘all’ of taking from Christ, the ‘all’ of giving to Christ; and the ‘all’ of winning others for Christ.” This was Paul’s response to Jesus who gave “ALL” for Paul.

Today you and I must stop to consider the “all” that Jesus gave us. In the words of the disciple Peter, “He used His servant body to carry our sins to the Cross so we could be rid of sin, free to live the right way. His wounds became your healing” (1 Peter 2: 24, 25,The Message Bible). As penned by Marvin P. Dalton in the hymn, “O What A Savior”:

“O what a Savior, O hallelujah

His heart was broken on Calvary

His hands were nail scarred

His side was riven

He gave His life-blood for even me.”

In what has become one of my all-time favorite quotes written by Oliver Greene, “Let the fact of what our Lord suffered for you grip you, and you will never again be the same.” No wonder the Apostle Paul, when writing to his Christian friends in the church at Corinth proclaimed: “I resolve to know nothing, to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing, and to be conscious of nothing among you except Jesus Christ the Messiah and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2: 2, Amplified Bible).

“On the mount of crucifixion,

Fountains opened deep and wide,

Through the floodgates of God’s mercy,

Flowed a vast and gracious tide,

Grace and love like mighty rivers,

Flowed incessant from above,

Heaven’s peace and perfect justice,

Kissed a guilty world in love.”

Author Unknown

Love Song of the Welsh Revival

AFFIRMATIONS:

Jesus Paid It All

“I hear the Savior say,

‘Thy strength indeed is small;

Child of weakness, watch and pray,

Find in Me thine all in all.’

Lord, now indeed I find

Thy power, and Thine alone,

Can change the leper’s spots,

And melt the heart of stone.

Since nothing good have I

Whereby Thy grace to claim,

I’ll wash my garment white

In the blood of Calvary’s Lamb.

And when before the throne

I stand in Him complete,

I’ll lay my trophies down,

All down at Jesus’ feet.

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain;

He washed it white as snow.”

Mrs. Elvina M. Hall

1865

“God just doesn’t throw a life preserver to a drowning person. He goes to the bottom of the sea, and pulls a corpse from the bottom of the sea, takes (the corpse) up on the bank, breathes into (her) the breath of life and makes (her) alive. That’s what the Bible says happened in your salvation.”

P. S. Thank you so much for the gifts you send to Transformation Garden which continue to assist our ministry here in the United States and in 192 countries around the world. 100% of your donation goes directly to providing for our daily devotionals and gift bookmarks. Transformation Garden is a non-profit organization so your gift is tax-deductible and you will receive a receipt for any gift you send.

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About Transformation Garden

Transformation Garden is a worldwide Christian ministry dedicated to encouraging and empowering women in their daily walk with Jesus. The devotional thoughts presented in Transformation Garden have their foundation in the Bible – the inspired word of God.